The present invention relates to a device that allows a succession of elements in the form of sheets to be printed by hot stamping.
The invention is applied in a particularly advantageous but not exclusive manner in the field of manufacturing packaging intended for the luxury goods industry.
It is known to print text and/or patterns using stamping, in other words to deposit colored or metalized film coming from one or more stamping foils, commonly known as metalized strips, on a support in the form of a sheet by being pressed against it. In the industry, such a transfer operation is traditionally performed by means of a vertical platen press, in which each printing support and the relevant stamping foils are pressed together between two parallel platens, one of which is stationary while the other is mounted so that it can move by being displaced in a vertical back-and-forth motion.
In the case of hot stamping, the transfer of the film requires heat to be applied as well as pressure. For this reason, a heating element is usually inserted between the stationary platen and the stamping tools which are associated with the latter. Such a heating element generally takes the form of a heating plate, one face of which is covered with an insulating material intended to serve as an interface with the plate, while the other face is intended to extend behind the stamping tools.
In practice, the heating element is integrally connected to the stationary platen by means of multiple fastening screws which are fitted from the inside of the platen press. This means in practice that each of them passes through the heating element before being screwed into an internal screwthread formed in an appropriate manner in the platen.
However, this type of arrangement has the disadvantage of making it particularly difficult to access the heating element, which has the consequence of significantly complicating maintenance and repair work. Indeed, in order to fit and remove the fastening screws, someone needs to put their arms between the platens of the press, which proves to be extremely impractical. Moreover, in order to reach the fastening screws furthest away from the side on which the operator stands, some peripheral units placed directly upstream and downstream from the platen press often need to be removed. Lastly, the heating element needs to be supported by hand the whole time that units are being extracted or inserted into the platen press.
The technical problem which is to be overcome by the subject of the present invention is also to provide a device for printing a succession of elements in the form of sheets, comprising a platen press capable of depositing colored or metalized film coming from at least one stamping foil on each sheet by stamping between a stationary platen and a movable platen, and a heating element capable of bringing any stamping tool integral with the stationary platen to a given temperature so that the stamping operation takes place in a hot environment within the platen press, which printing device would allow the problems from the prior art to be avoided, in particular by affording much easier maintenance.